[See updated version of this article on LinkedIn.]
Autodesk has faced a number of challenges from AEC startups — and has swatted them all away. The most recent one, Motif, having raised $46 million in funding, may be harder to get rid of. Motif is led by two ex-Autodeskers, each of whom has a score to settle. Amar Hanspal, CEO of Motif, left Autodesk after losing to Andrew Anagnost in a CEO runoff. We knew Brian Mathews, CTO, from when he was head of Autodesk Labs and VP of Reality Capture — until Autodesk inexplicably lost interest in that nascent but fast-growing field.
If there is any doubt that the pair is gunning for Autodesk, the doubt is removed by Alex Bard, Managing Director of the VC firm Redpoint and lead investor in Motif, who does everything but call Autodesk by name when he says “the leader in this space is 40 years old and has a $60 billion market cap.”
I saw Amar Hanspal for the first time when he had to defend the ill-fated AutoCAD R13 on stage with Carol Bartz, then CEO of Autodesk, at a SVAPU user meeting in San Jose. R13 was not his fault, though. R13 was rushed to release loaded with killer bugs. Amar survived and thrived at Autodesk, rising up the ranks all the way up to co-CEO after Carl Bass was ousted. Anagnost won the run-off and Amar left Autodesk, resurfaced in 2018 as CEO of Bright Machines, a next-generation robotic manufacturing company.
It’s too early to evaluate what Motif has to offer architects, as it won’t have software released until the middle of the year. However, we can expect a cloud-based AEC design and building platform. Hanspal promises lots of AI assistance. [Of course, we want more. See LinkedIn article for suggestions, Ed.] We imagine Motif developers working feverishly to add as much AI as possible — that is likely to be the most prominent differentiator to Autodesk’s cloud-based AEC platform.
It’s good to see Amar reunited with his true love: AEC. He speaks of being a “fanboy of building,” including SFO’s International Terminal and the Freedom Tower and his frustration with “21st-century buildings being built with 20th-century tools,” a reference to Revit, no doubt. However, he is delighted that Matt Jezyk and Lira Niolovska, VP of Product and VP of Design, respectively, both “early people at Revit,” join him at Motif.
